Web Development Blog

I prefer to call it remote working, as for me at least, ‘working from home’ still invokes images of a laptop open on the coffee table with Rick Stein’s Food Heroes on in the background. Whether you call it ‘remote…

This is a fairly common problem with Git, the Unlink of file issue. I encountered it on this occasion when attempting to run git gc to clean up and optimize my local repository. There’s plenty of documentation around this issue, however I…

If you have a Git branch that you want to keep but don’t want it hanging around like a fart in a Russian space station, then archiving is the answer. This can be achieved by tagging the branch with the…

I’ve been using Redgate SQL Source Control on an install of SQL Server Management Studio 2014 for a while now. It works well and integrates with our version control setup to give us a bit of reassurance when developing. I…

This one has caught me out a couple of times, it’s the kind of issue that you fix and forget about it for a few years until the need arises to move to a new machine. Here’s the scenario: Git…

This caught me out. I enabled Two-Factor Authentication on my GitHub account the other day, it works quite well with other services I use and I’ve had no problem with the Android App. Anyway, I promptly forgot about doing this and…

The Eclipse Desktop IDE is my development environment of choice, I’ve been using it for a number of years now and have come to rely on it exclusively for developing code. Whilst I know it has its critics, the PHP IDE project…

I spent most of the 90s travelling around the country Using British Rail, I remember well the day it was privatised in 1996. The pervasive British Rail livery that I’d become so attached to disappeared overnight, replaced with a plethora or…

I’ve been working with Theatre Sites for several months on a fairly complex ticket booking system that has presented a number of technical challenges. The finished product will likely power ticket selection and purchase for thousands of shows in Theatres across the country.…

The Windows 10 upgrade is in full swing and seems to be working well for most users. However, if like me you need to run specialist software that will only work on Windows 7, then you’re stuck for the time being.…

My web development machine is an off the shelf Lenovo T520i ThinkPad. It was never going to set the world alight in terms of speed or looks, but it’s a solid workhorse that has run Windows 7 without fail for…

This is the first time I have developed anything running on the Concrete5 Content Management System. The work was for a client of  Fanatic Design, an full service graphic design agency in Bristol. As a CMS I didn’t really get much…

This is a web presence that I built from scratch for the Supported Options Initiative, an initiative of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Supporting innovation in helping young people with irregular immigration status to live full lives The web site is a…

Mandy arrived back from her business trip to Arizona this week and I bagged a nice selection of gifts, including an awesome Arizona Cardinals hooded top. Apart from briefly supporting the Miami Dolphins in the 80s when it was all…

So I work for myself, from home. Amoungst other thing this means that I have to both source and administer my own hardware and software setup. More importantly, it means that I have to pay for it, that and everything else from…

I’ve been working on a Google AdWords project since 2012. It’s another one that’s constantly evolving to keep up with business needs, and with this project in particular – changes to the API on which it uses as its core.…

I upgraded my copy of Oracle VM VirtualBox this morning to the latest version, that being version 4.3.12. What I hadn’t banked on was having to install Guest Additions again after the upgrade completed, I remember doing this in the…

I love my ThinkPads, always have done. The sleek, black, hard matte rubber exterior is a design classic and has the strange futuristic feel of quality and purpose. Open the lid and the attention to detail, ergonomics and technology scream…

Project completed. I’m really pleased with the outcome, the speakers look great and whilst I’m no audiophile they sound fantastic. They are incredibly detailed and don’t suffer from any of that wallowing bottom end messiness prevalent in most Hi-Fi speakers.…

The final stage of the build. I wanted to make sure that the wiring of the crossovers and the driver polarity was right before final assembly so I tested the set up externally without an issues arising. The wool for…

With the demise of the TextDrive Lifetime hosting accounts I needed a new home for my blogs and applications. On the forums a few people had mentioned Linode as a new home for my digital stuff, their site looked like…

Last week I managed to move both of my WordPress blogs onto Linode with just a a few easily solved issues with permissions and file ownership. One hurdle I did get stuck at however was WordPress being unable to create…

The end of the road for TextDrive has been on the cards for a number of months. Tickets have gone unanswered, Dean Allen, the saviour of all things TD has been AWOL since the split from Joyent and the entire infrastructure…

My concerns about not managing this part of the project proved to be unfounded. Although it’s been over a decade since I’d done any soldering the construction of the crossovers was relatively painless. The instructions gave a visual representation of…

And so the project continues. We now have two MDF cabinets in their rawest form, simply glued together. To start the next stage I forced as much wood filler into anything that even resembled a gap, as much as possible…